Week One

Finished Problem Workshop 2, popped in to say high and talk application stuff with my team leader, and commuted home early.

What a week.

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling right now. About this time last week, I had virtually lost all hope entering the SMP. Looking ahead, I know I have a final in 2 weeks. I know it's important that I learn everything and do well, and that this week is not a feature performance. I'm probably going to put in a good 20 hours of studying this weekend, because I know there's a lot of material ahead that I'm not prepared for. I know it sounds gunner-ish, but staring at the practice exams we have, I hardly recognize half the questions, and I have a bunch of questions I should know unanswered or answered incorrectly.

I can say right off the bat that the SMP is not a pushover. It's not hard to the point that you will be crying, but even with material you already know, you still need to spend time to review the material. In the past week, I've put in more studying in a week than I have probably ever done in my life. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. I never outgrew the slacker lifestyle in college, and that eventually led to my ruin.

looking at my two years of application scratches, I find it kind of interesting that I never took the post-acceptance lifestyle seriously. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had gotten into a medical school instead. I would probably have failed out and become a full-time emo.

Georgetown's SMP motivates students to do well by promising the top half of the class interviews. When I look around at my classmates, I do feel somewhat intimidated. A lot of classmates are from big-name schools like UPenn, U Cals, Stanford, Columbia, Wake Forest, and so on, and that certainly intimidates me. I'm from a state school, and a lesser-known one at that. Am I content with my sad excuse for a social life being eliminated? No, but I understand it's a sacrifice I'm going to have to make to do well.

Wow, I can't believe I wrote such a serious expose. I can't even take myself seriously half the time!

Hopefully, my studying will pay off. I didn't take classes seriously because they were so sparsely placed. The block scheduling could ironically be the thing that motivates me to study my ass off.